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Arbitration Procedures

     A fire lieutenant was fired. He did not have a right to arbitrate his grievance under the collective bargaining agreement when the union had not referred the grievance to arbitration. Further, there was no due process violation when the findings of the Board of Police and Fire Commissioner that he had threatened his supervisors and their families was supported by the manifest weight of the evidence, and his statements that he wished to kill his supervisors was adequate to support his termination, since it constituted conduct unbecoming his position. Woods v. The City of Berwyn, 2014 IL App (1st) 133450, 2014 Ill. App. Lexis 753.

Bill of Rights Laws

     Los Angeles public safety officers were involuntarily transferred, and claimed that this would cause them to suffer negative employment consequences even though no specified right or their pay was affected. An intermediate California appeals court ruled that the plaintiffs were not entitled to relief as the Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights Act (Gov. Code section 3300 et seq.) did not allow them the right to an administrative appeal of a transfer of assignment made for a non-punishment purpose. L.A. Police Protective League v. City of L.A., #B250922, 2014 Cal. App. Lexis 1116.

Disability Rights and Benefits - Benefit Disputes

   A city's charter required it to provide disability benefit payments to police and firefighters suffering injuries in the course of their employment that rendered them unable to perform required job duties. The plaintiffs were firefighters who suffered disabiling injuries, and claimed that they were entitled to a minimum disability benefit of 25 percent of their base pay regardless of the amount they earned in other employment. The city at first paid them the benefits, finding them unable because of disabling injuries, to perform their required duties. Subsequently,. the city created new job assignments that included some of the plaintiffs' former job duties, and took the position that the plaintiffs were no longer disabled as they could perform the duties of these new job assignments which were given the same job classifications as the jobs the plaintiffs had previously performed. The city, therefore, required them to return to work and stopped paying disability benefits. The Oregon Supreme Court held that the city charter's use of the term "required duties" meant core duties necessary or essential to the job. The court ruled that the city was not entitled to summary judgment on the plaintiffs' claims because there was a genuine issue of material fact "as to whether the duties of plaintiffs' new job assignments were the 'required duties' for the job classifications that plaintiffs previously held." Miller v. City of Portland, #SC S061421, 356 Or. 402 2014 Ore. Lexis 811.

Military Leave

     An Indiana city, under a long time local ordinance, paid police officers "longevity pay" after each year of employment, amounting to $225 multiplied by the number of years of service. Because of financial problems in 1989, the city passed a second longevity pay law that prorated longevity pay for any officer taking a leave ofg absence during a particular year, including leaves for military service. An officer missed almost eight months of work during his twelfth year of service, while serving in the Air Force Reserves. He was therefore only paid one third of his longevity pay for that year. He claimed that his longevity pay was a seniority-based benefit which he could not be deprived on based on military service under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, 38 U.S.C. 4301–4335. A federal appeals court overturned summary judgment in favor of the city, finding that the statute guaranteed the officer payment of his full longevity pay for his twelfth year of service. The longevity pay was better characterized as a reward for the officer's lengthy service, rather than pay for work performed in a specific year. DeLee v. City of Plymouth, #14-1970, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 23148.

Pay Disputes

     Four separate lawsuits were brought against a city by current and retired police officers and firefighters. They claimed that the city's failure to pay them certain wages and benefits violated state and federal law, including breach of contract. A federal appeals court ruled that it had jurisdiction over the consolidated appeals by the city of the denial of its motions to dismiss on the basis of governmental immunity in the lawsuits. The appeals court further found that the city was not entitled to the dismissal of the lawsuits since the plaintiff had sufficiently valid contracts with the city. The city itself had conceded that such claims prevented a municipality from being awarded dismissal on the basis of governmental immunity. Davis v. City of Greensboro, #13-1820, 770 F.3d 278 (4th Cir. 2014).

Pension Benefits

     Public employees in South Carolina challenged the constitutionality of a law amending state retirement laws by mandating that public employees who retire and then return to work have to make the same pension fund contributions as other employees, but without receiving increased pension benefits. A federal appeals court rejected the plaintiffs' argument that claims they made under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment were exempt from the protection of Eleventh Amendment immunity. The state's pension plan and the retirement system trust were arms of the state entitled to sovereign immunity as were state officials sued in their official capacities for repayment of the additional pension plan contributions. The state officials who were sued in their official capacities for injunctive relief concerning the pension plan contributions were also entitled to sovereign immunity since their duties had no relation to the collection of the contributions. Hutto v. SC Retirement System, #13-1523, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 22931 (4th Cir.).

Race Discrimination

     For almost 40 years, the police promotional processes of the City of Memphis, Tennessee have been the subject of numerous lawsuits claiming racial discrimination or gender discrimination, including claims by African-American, other minority, and white officers, as well as the U.S. Department of Justice When the city discovered that answers to a promotional exam had been leaked, it adjusted the process and consented to the invalidity of the year 2000 process. The revised 2002 process was invalidated for violating Title VII's disparate impact prohibition. Back pay and interest were awarded to the plaintiff along with over $1 million in attorneys' fees and expenses. A federal appeals court upheld a governmental immunity dismissal of state law negligence claims concerning the year 2000 process, and reverse the Title VII judgment as to the 2002 process, along with the fees award. The plaintiff failed to show a genuine issue of fact as to the availability of an equally valid but less discriminatory testing alternative that the city could have utilized. Johnson v. City of Memphis, #13-5454, 770 F.3d 464 (6th Cir. 2014).

Retaliatory Personnel Action

****Editor's Case Alert****

    Police officers claimed that they were fired because they exposed the criminal activities of one of their municipality's alderman, rather than for deficient performance, as the city claimed. The trial court entered summary judgment for the defendant city based on the officers' failure to explicitly invoke 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 as the basis for their civil rights due process claim. Overturning a federal appeals court's affirmance of this result, the U.S. Supreme Court noted that federal rules concerning pleading in lawsuits only require “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief," and the lawsuit could not be rejected merely for an "imperfect statement" of the legal theory relied on. Additionally, qualified immunity was not applicable here, as no claims were made against any individual municipal officer, only against the city The complaint in the lawsuit adequately informed the city of the factual basis for the claim. Johnson v. City of Shelby, #13-1318, 135 S. Ct. 346, 190 L. Ed. 2d 309, 2014 U.S. Lexis 7437.

Volunteer Organizations

     A member of a volunteer ambulance corps sued the entity for violation of civil rights, claiming that various disciplinary charges brought against her and her suspension without a hearing violated her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The corps is a private, non-profit membership corporation providing emergency medical services as well as general ambulance services to the community under a contract with the town. A federal appeals court upheld a judgment that the defendant could not be held liable for alleged violation of federal civil rights under color of law. The actions taken could not fairly be attributed to the state or town as the plaintiff failed to show a sufficiently close nexus between the discipline imposed on her and state or town governmental entities. Grogan v. Blooming Grove Volunteer Ambulance Corps., #13-656, 768 F.3d 259 (2nd Cir. 2014).

Wrongful Discharge - In General

     Three ex-fire chiefs appealed grants of summary judgment on their due process claims challenging their terminations. A federal appeals court held that all of the plaintiffs were at-will employees under Missouri state law who had no property interest in their continued employment, and they were therefore terminable at will. There was no stigma attached to their terminations sufficient to deprive them of a liberty interest. Additionally, their individual capacity claims against certain defendants alleged no constitutional deprivation. Crews v. Monarch Fire Protection Dist., #13-3070, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 21792 (8th Cir.).

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      Body Cameras: ACLU - Illinois: Suggested Guidelines on Use of Body Cameras by Police (Sep. 2014).

     Body Cameras: Are You Recording This?: Enforcement of Police Videotaping, by Martina Kitzmueller, 47 (1) Conn. L. Rev. 167-196 (Nov. 2014).

     Racial Profiling: U.S. Department of Justice, Guidance for Federal Law Enforcement Agencies Regarding the Use of Race, Ethnicity, Gender, National Origin, Religion, Sexual Orientation, or Gender Identity (December 2014).

     Terrorism: Increasing Terrorism Preparedness of Law Enforcement Agencies, by Jeremy W. Francis, FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin (December 2014).

Reference:

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